2022/10/28 by Paz, James
#FOS: Arts (arts #Literature #Medieval #history of arts #music) #performing arts
paper · doi:10.57686/256204/18
When confronted with the question of what makes us human, some philosophers have answered that it is the ability to craft.1 That is, the very act of making makes us human. The political philosopher Hannah Arendt, for example, sees humanity in its role of homo faber as distinct from animals and divided from nature. Other scholars would disagree. The sociologist Jason Hribal and anthropologist Tim Ingold have proposed that nonhuman animals should be understood as both workers and crafters, while the philosopher of technology, Ashley Shew, has contended that animals possess technological knowledge. Such debates did not begin with modernity. In an early medieval English context, the Alfredian translator of the Old English Boethius understands craft as a gift from God loaned to human beings, while the counsellor in Ælfric’s Colloquy commands that young monks esto quod es or beo þæt þu eart by performing a craft. And yet, in other Old English literary texts, we find worms and bees whose skills surpass the metalcraft of the smith, birds whose songcraft is more heavenly than the sound of any musical instrument and whales whose devilish craft can overpower fishermen and trick seafarers.